Kenyan social media users have been circulating a video they say shows the president of neighbouring Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, making ridiculous martial arts moves. The video has been making the rounds since October 12. It turns out, however, that the video is actually a comedy sketch featuring an actor.
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A video said to show the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, wearing a bathrobe and doing ridiculous martial arts moves has garnered more than 470,000 views.
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The video’s circulation coincides with rising tensions between the two countries after the son of the Ugandan president, who also happened to be serving as the head of the armed forces, boasted his army could "capture Nairobi" in under two weeks.
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However, if you carry out a reverse image search on YouTube, you’ll find the original video – which is actually a comedy sketch by a Ugandan comedian who often impersonates the Ugandan President.
The fact check, in detail
The low-quality video shows a man wearing an ill-fitting bathrobe while doing ridiculous “karate” moves. The man also wears a white hat of the kind favoured by the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni.
The video has been widely circulated on Kenyan social media over the past few days by people poking fun at the Ugandan President. A popular account shared it on October 12, along with the caption, “This is the President of Uganda.” The video has already garnered more than 470,000 views.
Kenyan social media has been overflowing over the past week with videos making fun of the Ugandan president, his government and his army.
The wave of content mocking Ugandans follows a scandal that erupted last week when the son of the president, who also happened to be serving as commander-in-chief of the army boasted on Twitter on October 9, “It wouldn’t take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi.” Since then, his father has removed him from his post and apologized to Kenya.
The source: a Ugandan comedy video
You can find the original video if you go to YouTube and type in the keywords “Museveni” and “Karate”. One of the first things you’ll come across is this video published on April 9, 2022. The title, “TEACHER MPAMIRE THE KARATE KID PRESIDENT Ugandan Comedy 2022 HD” makes it pretty clear the video is a spoof.
The YouTube channel that posted the video belongs to “Teacher Mpamire”, the stage name of a Ugandan stand-up comedian named Herbert Mendo Ssegujja. Ssegujja is known for his portrayal of the Ugandan president, as he says in his bio.
The comedian has published several similar sketches, including another video back in 2020 on the same theme called “Teacher Mpamire as President Museveni teaches about self defense”.
The video, which shows the comedian pretending to be the president as he tries out different martial arts, is better quality than the video that has been circulating in recent days so it’s very clear the man in the video isn’t the Ugandan president.
The video has been circulating on a variety of social media networks and it is often hard to tell if the video is being taken seriously or shared as a joke. Even as far back as May of this year, the video was circulating on Twitter and TikTok in posts that don’t make it clear that the video is a comedy sketch.
This backdrop of tension between Uganda and Kenya has led to a wide circulation of false or misleading content online. For example, on October 10, a video of parachutists crash-landing into a crowd of people started circulating on Kenyan social media. The posts claimed the incident had taken place in Uganda and social media users were quick to crack jokes about the Ugandan army. Turns out, however, the incident actually took place in Honduras.
>> Read more on The Observers: No, this video of parachutists crash-landing in a stadium wasn’t filmed in Uganda
